Crown Bioscience to commercialize University of York's prostate cancer models

Published 12 February 2016

Crown Bioscience has reached an agreement with UK’s University of York to exclusively license and commercialize the university’s unique collection of patient-derived xenograft (PDX) models for prostate cancer.

Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer in men, impacting more than 14 million patients worldwide. The disease has long been underrepresented at the preclinical modeling stage of drug development, and as such, Crown Bioscience is anticipating significant demand for this new service offering.

Crown Bioscience president Jean-Pierre Wery said: "This agreement benefits cancer researchers around the world because these models will now become more widely available.

"With this agreement, we can offer researchers one of the largest, if not the largest, collection of well-validated prostate cancer PDX models. The university's models will be marketed alongside our industry-leading HuPrime® collection and run to CrownBio's meticulous standard."

CrownBio intends to expand characterization, including next generation sequencing, of the models, and ultimately to develop new models resistant to current clinical therapies. Derived from primary tissue, the collection includes pretreated and naïve material, plus examples of both clinically diagnosed castration-resistant (CRPC) and hormone sensitive prostate cancer.

The models were developed by Dr. Anne Collins in the laboratory of Professor Norman Maitland in the Department of Biology at the University of York, with major funding from the independent regional charity Yorkshire Cancer Research. "Since setting up the YCR Cancer Research Unit at the University of York in 1980, our researchers have advanced our understanding of the genetic makeup of prostate cancer and how it can be detected and treated. These models can now become a resource for researchers all over the world," said Charles Rowett, CEO at Yorkshire Cancer Research.

"We're delighted to work with CrownBio, the market leader in PDX and translational models, to help us bring these models to the wider research community," said Maitland, director of the YCR Cancer Research Unit at York.

"For many years, the preclinical development of the new therapies, sorely needed for prostate cancer, has relied on testing in models derived in the 1980s. Researchers will now be able to use multiple near-patient xenografts, from different stages and grades of prostate cancer. This initiative should provide the best indicator yet to drug developers of the particular patient group in which a new treatment will be most effective."